I guess every family has it's black sheep........
But seriously my guess is the way it was marketed, the EH-59 with it's larger HDD might have been only a little bit more money so most people stepped up to the EH-59, the EH-69 is a fair amount more than the EH-59 so all but the person that wants the best decide on the EH-59 and call it good. It's also possible Panasonic knew how limited the DVDR market was and decided to only the sell the EH-49 in markets that sold a lot of DVDRs. Lastly I'm not sure the EH-49 was ever made into a international machine(PAL/NTSC compatible and 220-120v 50/60hz) so that might also explain why we never see one in N. America. Just guesses but unless the EH-49 had been quite a bit cheaper than the EH-59 I would have still probably stuck with EH-59s.

Well, don't forget that the first iteration of our beloved Magnavox had an 80 gig HDD at a time when 120 and 160 gigs were pretty much the standard. And maybe the EH-49 was some sort of captive economy model for a German equivalent of Wal-Mart or Costco like the Pioneer DVR-450/460.

Always interesting to learn about the regional variations in how these machines are deployed by their users.

The theory that doswonk1 has come up with sounds very plausable to me. I ran across the EH49 when I was attempting to get a manual download. It is the 49/59/69 manual, and the only thing that is flagged as different between the 49 and 59 is the HDD size, and something about the USB speed. The HDD sizes for the 49/59/69 are listed as 160/250/320Gb. My eh75 has an 80Gb HDD! Apparently, so did the original Magnavox.

Luke

Evil is charming and beautiful. It makes you doubt yourself. It asks for one small compromise after another until it whittles you down, and it functions best when no one believes in it.-JOA

The theory that doswonk1 has come up with sounds very plausable to me. I ran across the EH49 when I was attempting to get a manual download. It is the 49/59/69 manual, and the only thing that is flagged as different between the 49 and 59 is the HDD size, and something about the USB speed. The HDD sizes for the 49/59/69 are listed as 160/250/320Gb. My eh75 has an 80Gb HDD! Apparently, so did the original Magnavox.

Even now, I can still live a fairly full, rich, rewarding life with DVDRs that have 160 gig drives.... Despite its late appearance in analog-era U.S. DVDRs, the small drive on the EH75 makes sense, since it was clearly meant to be a VHS-to-DVD dubbing machine, not a "poor man's DVR". You don't need a huge drive to park some VHS material just long enough to edit and chapter-ize it before running it to disc. The curious part is why Panasonic chose to double down on a very, VERY niche machine in what had already become a niche market too small to sustain more than, um....one player (Maganavox, as it turns out). Whatever, it was certainly a boon to folks like us!

The need for region-specific DVDRs, rather than one machine basically for the whole world, certainly didn't help the format. DVD *players* might have had the Region Code issue, but that was fairly easy to handle in a standardized way versus having to interface with every country's unique broadcast system.

Even now, I can still live a fairly full, rich, rewarding life with DVDRs that have 160 gig drives.... Despite its late appearance in analog-era U.S. DVDRs, the small drive on the EH75 makes sense, since it was clearly meant to be a VHS-to-DVD dubbing machine, not a "poor man's DVR".

Since buying it new, I have always, and still do use my EH75 chiefly as a DVR, to record Dish SD. The only time I've ever recorded or played anything on the VCR was after I first bought it, just to make sure everything worked.

In fact, when it was out and people here were buying it, I don't really recall anybody ever saying they used the VCR. They mainly seemed interested in other features, like TVGOS, and the HDD for recording to and editing. For VHS to DVD projects, they used separate VCR's, and they usually recommended the same to anybody coming here for advice.

Like with all or most combo units, the EH75's VCR isn't all that great, anyway.

I have to disagree with you on this Rammitinski. In my experience, the VCR part of the EH75 was quite good. I deliberately bought mine to do tape transfers. It really sucks at that though, because once you press the VHS to HDD dubbing button, autotracking becomes disabled. Many of my tapes had parts recorded on them by different machines This made auto tracking a necessity, and the machine next to useless for my purposes.

Back to the EH69, I recently did a bit of a survey, and it is listed in at least eight different vendor web pages, including Amazon. I guess the panic I was feeling a while back about them disappearing was premature. The prices vary by quite a bit too.

Luke

Evil is charming and beautiful. It makes you doubt yourself. It asks for one small compromise after another until it whittles you down, and it functions best when no one believes in it.-JOA

I have to disagree with you on this Rammitinski. In my experience, the VCR part of the EH75 was quite good. I deliberately bought mine to do tape transfers. It really sucks at that though, because once you press the VHS to HDD dubbing button, autotracking becomes disabled. Many of my tapes had parts recorded on them by different machines This made auto tracking a necessity, and the machine next to useless for my purposes.

My mistake then. I never really used it, so I just assumed. I thought there were a couple that were OK - I just wasn't sure which ones.

The lack of control with "all-in-one" transferring was actually part of what I was including in there. Should've detailed a little more, but I was lazy.

Well, I have to agree with your assessment: "The lak of control with the all-in-one design is a real weakness!" It LOOKS like a winner on paper, but in practice, it was a disaster--for everyone. There were a couple of machines that were better than a doorstop, but even those were poor comapred with the control you get with separate units. Incidentally, that's how I did almost all of my 1500 or so tapes, using separate VCR and DVD recorder. The combos just never worked for me.

Luke

Evil is charming and beautiful. It makes you doubt yourself. It asks for one small compromise after another until it whittles you down, and it functions best when no one believes in it.-JOA

DMR EH69 recording exactly what is on the screen and can't flip to another channel

Quote:

Originally Posted by Church AV Guy

That's a pretty general question. I have mine set up with my DirecTV receiver just like you. I use a DVR, not just a receiver. I don't use the timer record function, so I'm not sure exactly how that would work. When I want to record something, I use the DVR to playt back the title in question, then I press PLAY while it's recording and all the functions work as expected. I can (using the proper function) even put chapter marks in the title while it's recording.

Using the timer record, I don't know if this will work the same way or not.

Hi,

I am not very good at technical stuff but I am very diligent about reading everything I can and following all the steps and this tech project, so to speak, is really getting under my skin. I quoted you because you seem to know everything and I am hoping you or anyone else can help me. I live in Dubai and ordered this DMR after much research and have had trouble with the connections. I have a HUMIX satellite receiver that has only 1 HDMI outlet and a set of RCA nodes. Generally it is connected straight to the TV and I use the remote for it. With the DMR I was unable to connect it the way the manual suggested due to the lack of another HDMI outlet. Instead I have had to connect the HDMI cable straight from the DMR to the tv and then used the RCA cables to connect the Receiver to the DMR (out from Receiver and IN to the DMR). What has resulted is that the DMR only records exactly what I am watching; if I lower the volume or mute it, you can see it happening or the recording is muted; the quality is bad and I cannot record a channel and then watch another one. In my research, if this is correct, I would never have bought it but I think something is wrong with the connection and I dont know how to fix it. I bought it for my father who is an ex-football pro who lives for every single match and can't stay awake to watch them all live so recording 1 game and watching another or recording a couple of games, is a must and I thought this machine could do that. Please help me as much as you can! Thanks!

With satellite the Panasonic will only record what what your satellite tuner is set to, you cannot watch one channel while recording another channel. The best you could do is to record one channel while watching back something different that you had recorded at a previous time. As far as your poor quality, watching your satellite tuner the way you are you are basically watching everything through the low 480i quality RCA connections, you would be much better off running the HDMI direct from your satellite tuner to your TV and also the HDMI from your Panasonic to your TV. If your TV only has one HDMI input you could look into a relatively inexpensive HDMI switcher(2-4 inputs one output) that or if your TV has RCA inputs you could run the RCA output from your Panasonic to your TV and watch your Panasonic that way. Note any recording or any playing of the Panasonic will NOT be HD, only 480i SD and won't look as good as watching something directly from your satellite receiver, to record HD from satellite you need a satellite company DVR, not a DVDR.

As jjeff has said, we recommend you connect the HDMI of the HUMIX to the television. Connect the RCA connectors of the HUMIX to the Panasonic EH69, then connect the EH69 to the television the best way you can, HDMI, component, S-Video, or composite, in that order of preference. Unless the HUMIX can tune two shows at a time, you will be unable to record one show while watching another. Maybe you could get a second one. I have two DirecTV receivers. The thing with the volume is interesting. Are you controlling the volume and mute using the HUMIX remote control? If so, I recommend you switch to using the television remote for loudness control instead.

What make and model of television do you have? What model of HUMIX?

Luke

Evil is charming and beautiful. It makes you doubt yourself. It asks for one small compromise after another until it whittles you down, and it functions best when no one believes in it.-JOA

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